REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AND
PRESIDENT KIM TAE-CHUNG OF THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA
The Oval Office

3:18 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Let me begin by welcoming President Kim and
his delegation to the United States. He is a remarkable leader, and a
person that all of us very much admire. And in the last year we have
seen an astonishing turnaround in the Korean economy, going from a
period of contraction to a period of quite robust growth, in ways that
no one could have predicted. It's a great, great success story. And I
congratulated President Kim on that, and then we talked some, and we
will talk more in our meeting after this, of our security partnership.

The second thing I would like to say, very briefly is, I think all
of you know that the British and Irish Prime Ministers have issued their
proposal for the way forward on the Irish peace process. And I think
this is a very welcome development. It gives us a chance to fulfill the
Good Friday accords. It gives the people of Northern Ireland, both
Protestant and Catholic, a chance to shape their destiny and govern
themselves. It gives us a chance to put an end to guns and violence
forever. And the United States intends to support their efforts and to
hold all the parties to their commitments. I think that is very, very
important.

This is a major opportunity to resolve that difficult problem
forever, in ways that are good for all the people there. So it's good
news.

Q Mr. President, do you plan to support the South Koreans' bid to
make a long-range missile -- develop a long-range missile that could
possibly hit their northern neighbor?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, we're going to have our security
discussion after this, and I think that we should talk about it before I
make a public comment.

Q Sir, to those who are dissatisfied with the proposals outlined by
the Prime Ministers today, what would you say?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I would say, first of all, let's look at how
far we've come. All the parties to the Good Friday accord -- and large
majorities in Northern Ireland -- agree on the commitments that everyone
has, and how it should look at the end.

This whole argument has been over the sequencing of, how do you
stand up the government, how do you get on with decommissioning. No one
disputes the fact that everything has to be done by next May -- on the
decommissioning, for example. No one disputes the fact that everyone
who got a certain percentage of the vote in the last election is
entitled to be part of the executive.

And so I would say to those who are dissatisfied, first of all,
everybody's got to comply with everything. One of the things this
proposal does is to reaffirm that. So who can be dissatisfied with
that?

Secondly, if you are afraid that the decommissioning won't occur --
therefore you don't want to stand up the government -- my answer to that
is that the Prime Ministers have offered to pass a bill through the
British Parliament, which will make it clear that if General de
Chastelain's Commission's timetable is not kept, that the whole thing
can be brought down.

So I would say to those who are skeptical, there are guarantees
here. No one is going to get something for nothing. Everybody's going
to have to fulfill the word of the Good Friday accord. And so don't let
this thing come apart now.

Would you like to make a statement, Mr. President?

PRESIDENT KIM: This is my third meeting with President Clinton,
and our third meeting in less than two years. And this clearly
demonstrates the closeness of the bilateral relations between Korea and
the United States. And I do hope that these close ties of cooperation
will continue to be further strengthened.

I am extremely satisfied with the present state of relations
between the two countries. We are meeting in close coordination on all
issues -- on economic issues, as well as security issues. And I do hope
that this close cooperation sends a clear message to North Korea.

Thank you very much.

Q Thank you.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Thank you all.

Q What are you doing for the 4th of July?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: We're going to be around here, watch the
fireworks on the Mall.